differenthistoryfandomcom-20200215-history
Detective Jenny (Johnsonverse)
Detective Jenny is an American animated series that ran on WBC's Saturday Night block from September 3, 1994 to December 29, 2001, and again since September 2, 2017. The series follows the adventures of 11-year-old Jenny G. Dennis, played by Tara Charendoff, who took the surname Strong after marrying Craig Strong in 2000, Makayla Olga Isabell, played by Cree Summer, Kristen Smith, played by Kristen Schaal, Terry Jones, played by Tress MacNeille, and Louise Savage, played by Alanna Ubach, five child detectives, hired by Joe Quill, played by Shane Rimmer, and Dennis Leonard, played by Ben Stein, in the employ of the UN to uncover such dark things as drug smugglers, arms traffickers, human slavers, and terrorists. The series was critically acclaimed, and launched the careers of Kristen Schaal and Alanna Ubach. Development In late 1992, Tammy Jo Johnson, known for being a doodler, drew up five characters while at a Howard Johnson's during a visit at Times Square. Johnson named the five characters' given names after relatives of the Johnson Family (e.g. Jenny was named after Johnathan Johnson's wife Jenny Anne Daniels; an urban legend postulates that Jenny Smith was named after the character, as she was born during the series' first run). At that point, she immediately began making a series of comic books based on the five characters, naming the series Detective Jenny, about the five girls employed by the UN to uncover various criminal activities, under the Chalke Comics banner (later Johnson Comics after 2010) to distinguish from the former Johnson Comics, which Phil Stacker had sold to Marvel during his mental breakdown in October 1991. The series was an instant hit, and Johnson's brother, Stephen J. Chalke, saw potential in the characters, and started creating the television series in mid-1993. The pilot, finished in December 1993, was sold to WBC, where Sheldon Johnson, Jr., and his brother Craig, helped Tammy Jo and Stephen develop the series. Premise The series follows five young girls working for a special task unit of the United Nations. They were selected because of their unassuming looks. Known as "Team Jenny", they are tasked with infiltrating, uncovering, and in many cases, destroying illegal operations. The series has been described as "deceptive". On the outside, it seems like a generic girls' show, but the series is actually very dark and mature, serving to deconstruct the child hero concept. The heroines often find themselves in dangerous situations, and carry firearms that they do not hesitate to use to kill. In fact, they seem to have no qualms about killing, and will not take chances with their enemies. In addition, innocent civilians, even children, are often caught in the crossfire. As a result, they are viewed as outcasts in school because of their line of work, and don't have any friends aside from each other. They have also been left with mental and emotional scars as the series progressed, and since no therapist will see them, these scars only worsened to the point that Terry once ripped out and ate the heart of a drug lord in a Season 8 episode, Makayla and Kristen stabbed a smuggler with a sword, took out his eyes with a corkscrew, and left him to die in a Season 5 episode, and Louise also once burned a terrorist alive and fed his body parts to her dogs in a Season 6 episode. The series also involves such themes as drugs, smuggling, slavery, human trafficking, and terrorism. Villains are either depicted as depraved individuals, or good people forced into a life of crime. It is for this reason that several one-off villains were redeemed, but usually died in the process. The series also has a recurring antagonist in the form of a terrorist organization known as Black Scorpion. Led by a man known only as "Onizuka" (named for Ellison Onizuka, an astronaut who died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster), they commit terror acts around the world, with the ultimate goal of Japan gaining independence from the United States, though this goal later changed to bringing the entire world under a neo-Nazi dictatorship. This was the first series to use Johnson's famed hybrid approach, mixing animation with live-action elements such as miniatures and live pyrotechnics. In fact, early in production, Johnson Television was in talks with Gerry Anderson to make a Supermarionation series out of the concept; had this gone through, it would have been Anderson's first series to use Supermarionation since The Secret Service; negotiations fell through when Anderson wanted to use the Supermacromation technique used in Terrahawks. The series was also the first WBC series to be created in widescreen, to coincide with Johnson-owned PrimeStar's switch to widescreen earlier that year. The intro is also innovative, using silhouettes of the characters doing their respective things in various shapes, with their respective colors, along with their voice actors' names, also in that same color, while a dramatic theme by longtime Johnson Philharmonic Orchestra composer Cal Johnson plays. The sound of ice clinking in glass is also heard in every episode. The opening sequence is an homage to old spy movies. Much of the series' soundtrack is stock music composed by Barry Grey for various Gerry Anderson series. The outro involves the cast in various situations from the previous season (except for season one, which had clips from the pilot and the first six episodes), set to another original composition; both the opening and end credit music were used in the 2004 video game Evil Genius. Comics (1992-present) Pilot (1993) Season 1 (1994) Season 2 (1995) Season 3 (1996) Season 4 (1997) Detective Jenny: The Movie (1997) Season 5 (1998) Season 6 (1999) Detective Jenny: The Second Movie (1999) Season 7 (2000) Season 8 (2001) Detective Jenny: The Third Movie (2001) Detective Jenny: The Fourth Movie (2003) Detective Jenny: The Fifth Movie (2005) Detective Jenny: The Sixth Movie (2007) Detective Jenny: The Seventh Movie (2009) Detective Jenny: The Eighth Movie (2011) Detective Jenny: The Ninth Movie (2013) Detective Jenny: The Tenth Movie (2015) Detective Jenny: The Eleventh Movie (2017) Season 9 (2017) Season 10 (2018) Reception Category:Johnsonverse